books

Pete Rose has a downtown street named after him, but there are many once-famous Cincinnatians who have been all but forgotten. For example, our city is home to the first black Olympic champion, the artist who created the comic strip and the inventor of the Magic 8 Ball. Cincinnati Enquirer librarian and history writer Jeff Suess uncovers details about these individuals, as well as some of the many forgotten events that took place here, in his book, “Hidden History of Cincinnati” – which goes back to a time before Cincinnati was even Cincinnati.

Robert F. Kennedy is remembered as a racial healer, a defender of the poor and a progressive champion of the Sixties. But Kennedy's political journey began in the conservative Fifties. In his new book, "Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon," author Larry Tye chronicles Kennedy's transformation from cold warrior – he began his public life as counsel to the red-baiting senator Joseph McCarthy – into fiery liberal. We spoke with Larry Tye about Robert Kennedy's life.

Most of us look forward to the summer months and being able to spend more time enjoying the warm weather and extra hours of sunlight. But with gardening, going to the pool, baseball, camps and, well, work, finding the time, and the desire, to cook and prepare meals can prove a challenge for many families. Katie Workman offers an answer to that problem. In her latest cookbook, "Dinner Solved! 100 Ingenious Recipes That Make the Whole Family Happy, Including YOU," she provides tips on how to easily prepare multiple dishes using simple ingredients, and how to create variations on a single recipe to satisfy everyone at the table.

Last June in the landmark case, Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the right to marry is guaranteed to same sex couples under the Fourteenth Amendment. The lead plaintiff in the case, Cincinnatian Jim Obergefell, and Washington Post investigative reporter Debbie Cenziper have just released a book about the struggle to make same-sex marriage legal.

Personal finance is something that leaves a lot of us scratching our heads as we ponder questions like how to save, what to invest, and how to do all this while reducing debt. University of Chicago professor Dr. Harold Pollack and his co-author, financial journalist Helaine Olen, say it really isn't as difficult as some would have you believe.

Born into post-apartheid South Africa, the young women of the townships around Cape Town still face daunting challenges. Their families and communities have been ravaged by poverty, violence, sexual abuse, and AIDS. Yet, as Kimberly Burge discovered when she set up a writing group in the township of Gugulethu, the spirit of these girls outshines their circumstances.

Kimberly Burge, author of The Born Frees: Writing with the Girls of Gugulethu, will be participating at an event tomorrow evening at the YWCA of Greater Cincinnati. The discussion will include guests from local service agencies that work in support of women’s needs, and focus on raising women’s voices at the local, national and international levels.

The new book, Walking Cincinnati, by Danny Korman and Katie Meyer, is a guide through the historical, architectural, and culinary sites in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. The book focuses on the human-interest stories connected with the places noted along the book’s 32 walking tours, and unveils some of the more fascinating aspects of Greater Cincinnati.

The Emmy-award winning Orange is the New Black, based on Piper Kerman’s memoir of the same name, depicts her arrest, conviction and incarceration for drug-trafficking. But the book and Netflix series are from only Kerman’s perspective. Now, Cleary Wolters, the real life Alex Vause from the show, tells her side of the story in a new book, Out of Orange. She joins us to discuss her experiences.

Forty shelters for free books will soon begin popping up around the county thanks to a program from the public library. Community members could buy the boxes for ten dollars and then were asked to decorate them. They're often placed in neighborhoods or outside someone's home.

Council member Ryan Salzman helped get Bellevue involved. He thinks it's the simplicity that draws people to the Little Libraries.

The Society of Friends, more commonly known as the Quakers, came to Ohio in the late 1700s and early 1800s. The Quakers played a major role in nineteenth-century reform efforts including the temperance, women's rights, and abolition movements.

The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County has released a list of the most popular books in 2014. They are the titles that were checked out most often between January and November of this year. (December’s numbers weren’t available.)

Drawing on ten years of research in the trenches of Cleveland libraries, boarded-up high schools, and secret, private collections, and a love of comic books, Brad Ricca's Super Boys is the first ever full biography about Superman's creators.

Among scores of new discoveries, the book reveals the first stories and pictures ever published by the two, where the first Superman story really came from, the real inspiration for Lois Lane, the template for Superman's costume, and much, much more. Super Boys also tracks the boys' unknown, often mysterious lives after they left Superman, including Siegel's secret work during World War II and never-before-seen work from Shuster.

As the story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.

A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

Hatshepsut - the daughter of a general who usurped Egypt's throne and a mother with ties to the previous dynasty - successfully negotiated a path from the royal nursery to the very pinnacle of authority, and her reign saw one of Ancient Egypt’s most prolific building periods. Scholars have long speculated as to why her monuments were destroyed within a few decades of her death, all but erasing evidence of her unprecedented rule.

Constructing a rich narrative history using the artifacts that remain, noted Egyptologist Kara Cooney offers a remarkable interpretation of how Hatshepsut rapidly but methodically consolidated power - and why she fell from public favor just as quickly. The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt traces the unconventional life of an almost-forgotten pharaoh and explores our complicated reactions to women in power.

On a cold, drizzly fall afternoon in 1958, a trio of duck hunters stumbled on the charred remains of Cincinnati resident Louise Bergen. When investigators learned that her estranged husband was living with an older divorcée, Edythe Klumpp, they wasted no time in questioning her. When she failed a lie detector test, Edythe spilled out a confession. Although it did not fit the physical evidence, she was found guilty and sentenced to death in the electric chair.

Governor Michael V. DiSalle put his political career on the line to save Edythe from the death penalty, personally interviewing the prisoner while she was under the influence of "truth serum." But was it the truth? Richard O Jones separates the facts from the fiction in this comprehensive book about the Klumpp murder in Cincinnati's Savage Seamstress: The Shocking Edythe Klumpp Murder Scandal.

From a manual for witch hunters written by King James himself in 1597, to court documents from the Salem witch trials of 1692, to newspaper coverage of a woman stoned to death on the streets of Philadelphia while the Continental Congress met, The Penguin Book of Witches is a treasury of historical accounts of accused witches that sheds light on the reality behind the legends.

Katherine Howe bings to life stories like that of Eunice Cole, tried for attacking a teenage girl with a rock and buried with a stake through her heart; Jane Jacobs, a Bostonian so often accused of witchcraft that she took her tormentors to court on charges of slander; and Increase Mather, an exorcism-performing minister famed for his knowledge of witches, this volume provides a unique tour through the darkest history of English and North American witchcraft.

Nearly a decade after announcing the last book in her multi-million selling Mitford Years series, Jan Karon has returned to the cherished North Carolina town for a new novel, Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good.

Cincinnati author Tamera Muente introduces her first novel, The Boy at the Museum. Arthur has landed a job at the most sensational museum in 1830s Cincinnati. Filled with curiosities, its most popular live exhibit is Enos, a boy born without legs. Arthur meets the boy’s widowed mother and the two become entangled in the museum's strange world.

Phil Nuxhall, official historian for Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery, followed up his successful photography book, Beauty in the Grove: Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum, with Stories in the Grove - 115 of his favorite stories from the second largest cemetery in the country. Nuxhall's collection includes tales of Wild Bill Hickok's wife, the man who changed Doris Kappelhoff's name to Doris Day, Babe Ruth's manager, the inventor of the oven window, and more.

Dan Wright, owner of OTR's Senate, offers a peek behind the scenes of his restaurant and his life with his book Senate: Street & Savory. Favorite recipes, including his popular gourmet hot dogs, are featured along with cooking techniques and tips.

Hugo Award-winning author John Scalzi talks with Mark Perzel about his new novel, Lock In, a near future thriller.

During the interview, Scalzi mentions that there is a discussion going on in science fiction about whether science fiction is a genre or a mode. That is- is it a very specific type of writing that has to be done in a specific way, or is it a wider sort of trope that you can put other genres into? What do you think? Let us know by joining the conversation on the WVXU Facebook page.